Tired of the performative beggars and alcoholics this time of year

[Onand]

Is anyone else sick and tired of the huge number of ‘homeless’ beggars, alcoholics and addicts that descended on the streets since the Christmas rush started this year?

Manchester is rife with them- this year there is a particularly ropey bunch of alcoholics/ addicts that are obnoxiously ‘sleeping’ or sitting with their bags pointing directly out into the street instead of being against a wall, they’re building ‘dens’ in shop doorways which stink of human faeces and piss, dealers go from spot to spot, dogs forced to sit in uncomfortable situations (often not even their dog as the same one gets passed from beggar to beggar).

It’s a self perpetuating problem because soup kitchens serving buffets set up and cater meals for them whilst they’re generally being a nuisance and making the streets look an absolute shitty mess. Why are they tolerated? People need to stop giving them money as it just encourages them to keep doing it when there are services in place to help them.

Bah humbug I know, but It’s beyond grim.

Near me there are several regular drug addicts who walk the streets and stand outside the supermarket begging. One of them does have a flat (even has his keys attached to him) and is quite well dressed...he just wants money for drugs. Not sure if the others are actually homeless. What really fucks me off is when they have the sheer audacity to ask teenagers making their way to school for money...

Oh and I've been in central London and have seen discarded needles on the pavement. It's fucking disgusting and I really do struggle to feel sympathy when they are scaring others and putting people at risk

I pity you more, completely oblivious to the point of the thread which is about beggars and addicts blighting our streets when those in real desperate need often go unnoticed behind closed doors.

Are you saddened to see so many agree with me? Those poll results are more in favour than not.

Lastly don’t speak about a ‘sad thread’ when you clearly have a twisted soul to wish a stranger a ‘Christmas they deserve’.

It’s beyond grim. They’re chancers and give those in genuine need a bad name. A scourge on our streets and it only seems to be getting worse.

Theres a decently dressed older man in Manchester who approaches you claiming he’s lost his car keys and just needs money for a train home. Every week. The audacity and cheek is just wow, it does make me wonder how many naive nice people fall for his scam, usually on weekends when visitors are more likely to take pity and the story could potentially be true.

He’s no different to those sat spiced out of their mind or aggressively selling the ‘last copy’ of the Big Issue. Maddening.

@thesunisastar I'm certainly centre left and I agree with you -if we all dismiss these concerns we end up with vast swathes of the population lurching to the right - the fact is it's a mixed bag- we leave in Bath and it's clear we have some very genuine situations and a whole bunch of professionals at it too- I have found the professionals tend to be keen on posher touristy places - we really though do need as a society to be converting unused facilities into shelters with single rooms and facilities and support -

Yes a random burglar

Rishi/Suella have more nuance!

My disdain for the less well off is not season bound

Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?

To quote @JollyHollyMe

“In the past few weeks there have been young and quite well dressed beggars on the tube and on the streets. Never seen the like before in the years that I have lived here. Women in tracksuits, trainers and with handbags just walking up and asking for cash. Commented to a colleague about it only last week. They are quite aggressive. Seem to be beggars but not homeless.”

I had this on a busy shopping street in Liverpool - a very tidily dressed man, in his 30’s - it caught me off guard. He was intimidating, my immediate thought was that he could have a knife. Passers by noticed nothing, he simply didn’t look the part. He slithered off when he realised I wasn’t alone, DH had been a few steps behind me.

I lived in a neighborhood with a site like this. It certainly does not reduce problems in the neighbourhood, quite the opposite.

It's also pretty questionable that they save lives. Certainly, people who are in them if they OD are less likely to die. Which is how they create those statistics - every person "saved" is counted.

What they don't ask is to what extent providing supposedly safe drugs changes people's behaviour, or changes their perceptions about addiction.

If you look at where this has been tried at scale, it's a complete failure. People always point to Portugal as the success of harm reduction, but they not only also provided easy access to rehab services, they made it very difficult for people to refuse to go to them - they had very much a carrot/stick approach which does not seem to happen in other places where they have tried it.

Head off to San Francisco or Vancouver to see the results.

I don't understand why some people refuse to believe there are people being run as organized crime in this way, and in some cases being trafficked?

There are people happy to run girls as prostitutes, and young people as pickpockets, why wouldn't they run beggars?

My experience is the same as yours, you do get to know the people who genuinely live in your area and are struggling.

Where do you expect the actual homeless people to go? If there were enough services and charities they would be there, not sleeping rough. Why would an actual homeless person want to sleep rough instead of a hostel? (Maybe there are legit reasons but I can't think of any).

I do believe vulnerable minorities get run and trafficked by criminal gangs. They are still, for whatever reason, vulnerable. If you have direct knowledge / evidence, might I suggest you become a thorn in the side of your local police and councillors, and if nothing is done take it to the press. I mean, if average Jo can't move on the streets for being harrassed by these highly organised and aggressive gangs, then that's a serious civil and criminal issue that is being completely ignored.

Another question for the OP and the other hard liners on the thread. What exactly is your proposed final solution for removing those you perceive to be undesirable from our society?

Many homeless charities openly acknowledge some of them simply do not engage with their services or their behaviour and conduct is so detrimental that they are not allowed to stay in their facilities.

They’re not all innocent angelic victims of big bad society- some of them have terrible pasts and chaotic lives of their own doing. The hostels have to be kept safe for those staying, would you want to be sleeping in a unit with wild alcoholic addicts causing chaos?

Lots of them probably have issues of their own causing, for whatever reason they caused them.

Do you believe that those people don’t deserve help? They’ve made their bed/cardboard box and they can lie in it?

You’ve got a real issue with people who have alcohol or drug addictions, leaving them to rot is insanely callous.

There will always be people who take the piss, in every walk of life. They have the right to beg and you have the right to ignore them. If there is any aggressive begging I just tell them I’ll be calling the police if they carry on. Pick pockets and muggers piss
ne off more- choose where you invest your emotions. I just don’t have the energy to be angry with everyone.

My ideal solution would be to make it a criminal offence to beg on the streets and enforce it by consistently moving them on, repeat known offenders handed town centre bans. I would make it very difficult, to put off those who may see it as a way of life. Zero tolerance. I’d invest more in services which help those who want help.

Anyone shooting up or clearly in a comatose Spice state to be sent to mandatory clean up facilities.

There would be no sleeping bags or tents on our high streets either. Those found with dogs and no fixed address would have them seized for the safety and well-being of the animal.

@Onand I'm just amazed your type of views are allowed to be aired on Mumsnet to be honest.

People keep quoting the same line from "A Christmas Carol" (thus proving that they haven't read the thread), but actually - hate me if you will, I don't care - the idea of workhouses isn't a terrible one, if they were run humanely. Somewhere safe and warm where they would be fed and given reasonable work, would that be so bad? Better and safer than living on the streets surely?

When your walk to and from work every day is through a homeless heavy city centre it’s hard to dismiss or simply ignore. It’s clearly visible, it’s actually grim to be walking past doorways stinking of human excrement, the businesses which have to clean this up day after day do not deserve it either. Would you want that?

The city is slowly becoming a dirty ghetto hovel which I cannot avoid because I have to live and work in it.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/criminal-justice-bill-2023-factsheets/criminal-justice-bill-nuisance-begging-and-rough-sleeping#:~:text=The%20government%20committed%20in%202022,Sentencing%20and%20Courts%20Act%202022.

Like this you mean?

Also, I would like your analysis of why these problems are proliferation?

What is it that has caused the escalation do you think? And when did the tide start to turn?

Why have such grim alleged "lifestyle choices" become apparently more desirable than "fitting in" and being part of "normal society"?

Is it possibly the effects of current economic policy or do you think people just wake up one morning and think "Hmm, I fancy trying my hand at being perceived as a scourge on society" ?

Love the italics, just to drive the message home the feckers done it to themselves!

By all accounts, it is fairly common for homeless people to refuse a hostel place- their lives are very chaotic with deep addictions, severe mental health conditions and fear of authorities. There are several reasons they might refuse a place and some people are not in a position where they can mentally accept help. Even when help is available there are many that will refuse it because getting help means facing up to your problems which is often harder than sleeping on the streets. You can only help people when they are willing to help themselves.